Germany star plays down their chances of retaining the World Cup

Toni Kroos reckons Germany have the “most difficult task” in football — defending the World Cup . The Real Madrid midfielder insists they will have to improve, saying they are “not as dominant” as they were. Boss Joachim Loew is going to his sixth major tournament – five as manager, one as Jurgen Klinsmann’s assistant. And he has reached at least the semi-finals every time, ensuring Germany are many people’s favourites to repeat their 2014 triumph in Russia this summer. They also won the dress rehearsal Confederations Cup in the host nation a year ago — with a virtual reserve squad! Loew has such strength in depth he could leave Manchester City’s Leroy Sane, one of the Premier League players of this past season, at home, and can call on stars such as Kroos, fit-again keeper Manuel Neuer, Jerome Boateng and Thomas Muller. But Kroos said: “Clearly, this is not that easy a task. Only two teams have done it in the last 20 World Cups. That tells the real story. “The most difficult task is to defend the World Cup successfully. We need to improve and play at our best like we did in 2014 to achieve it. “Things have changed — both in our team as well as in other teams. We have played against a few big teams and we were not as dominant. That gave us a clear picture. “Other teams had improved too in this period of four years m— the Brazil of 2018 is… [Read full story]